“The little bags round [children’s] necks and the thread used to tie their umbilical cord are both red. Red is very significant for us. It means heat, strength, all living things. It’s linked to the sun, which for us is the channel to the one god, the heart of everything, of the universe. So red gives off heat and fire and red things are supposed to give life to the child.”

—Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.